Oh, and apparently I'm not alone in my pessimism about McCain being able to win the election in 2008

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But the biggest obstacle in McCain’s path may be running in the same party as the most unpopular president America has had since at least the advent of modern polling. Only Harry Truman and Nixon — both of whom were dogged by unpopular wars abroad and political scandals at home — have been nearly as unpopular in their last year in office, and both men’s parties lost the presidency in the following election.

With all due respect to "historians," they still think Jimmy Carter is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Obama has such enormous problem on his own that he could be running against David Duke and it would still be a race. But it's likely to be a close one. Depends on how many Obama voters can stay conscious and off the pavement long enough to vote.

I think someone who holds up Bill O'Reilly as an example of a "true interview" is hardly qualified to judge "journalistic integrity." Journalistic integrity is not just mindlessly parroting the Bush line on everything.

I take it, Markle, what you didn't watch Bill O'Reilly ask real questions about real issues (otherwise known as journalism), point blank to Hillary when they did that interview a few weeks ago. It's what you call a fair grilling, which she handled well. (Obama was too fraidy-pants to appear on big, bad Fox News where they might not restrict the questions to how many women fainted at his last rally. O'Reilly says he pledged to do an interview after the primaries. We'll see if he sticks to that.) Larry King's fawning interviews are what the mainstream liberal media thinks is tough journalism. I don't always agree with O'Reilly, but give him his due. He doesn't belly-roll no matter who's on the receiving end of his questions.

She's 20 years past peak hotness, but that might give her gravitas.

LOL. That sounds to my ear exactly like the lines that would be bantered about in some strategy session at the networks for picking a replacement. "She's got nice cans but still her voice is forceful and probing. I don't think the hooters will be a handicap to the gravitas, but I can't speak for gravity."

This is the one, right?

God I love the look of Hedy Lamarr. (That's Hedley)

That's her. I go weak in the knees whenever I see her. I'd love to find a more recent picture.

Hedy was no slouch either. I also think Lynne has a bit of Rita Hayworth about her. Sigh.

Hedy was no slouch either.

That's Hedley. Speaking of which, I was watching a bit of "Blazing Saddles" on a cable channel the other day. And it totally ruins that movie when they cut out the n-word. Despite the fact that the central point of this movie is that the whites in Rock Ridge are all shown to be stupid bigots and the black sheriff (Bart) is portrayed as an intelligent hero, it's still too much for some people to hear that word.

quote:

[the Johnsons load their guns and point them at Bart. Bart then points his own pistol at his head]
Bart: [speaking in a low voice] Hold it! Next man makes a move, the nigger gets it!
Olson Johnson: Hold it, men. He's not bluffing.
Dr. Sam Johnson: Listen to him, men, he's just crazy enough to do it!
Bart: [low voice] Drop it! Or I swear I'll blow this nigger's head all over this town!
Bart: [now speaking in a higher voice] Oh, lo'dy, lo'd, he's desp'it! Do what he sayyyy, do what he sayyyy...
[the Johnsons drop their guns. Bart jams the gun into his neck and drags himself through the crowd and towards the station]
Harriett Van Johnson: Isn't anybody going to help that poor man?
Dr. Sam Johnson: Hush, Harriet, that's a sure way to get him killed!
Bart: [higher voice] Oooh! He'p me, he'p me! Somebody he'p me! He'p me! He'p me! He'p me!
Bart: [lower voice] Shut up!

That's comedy gold. I wonder how much Brooks and the other writers (including Richard Pryor) were inspired by Monty Python. That scene is very Monty Pythonesque, and I can't think of a lot of other work from Mel that has this distinct quality to it. But it loses all its comedic punch when you remove the word "nigger" from it. This is great parody. But it's anti-racism message is actually stripped from it by this sensitivity censoring.

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Yeah, that's a great surrealistic scene. And I love the capper, when he gets away from the townspeople and congratulates himself: "Oh, man, you are so talented....And they are so DUMB!"

"Blazing Saddles" comes close to matching the quotability of "Casablanca."

"Bart! You shifty nigger! They said you was hung!"
"And they was right!"

"Hey! Where the white women at?"

"Good morning, ma'am, and ain't it a fine morning?"
"Up yours, nigger."

"Oohhh...Mongo straight!"

"Mongo only pawn in game of life."

"I can't afford to lose a $400 handcart! Send out a couple of niggers!"

"There, there, it's only a man and a horse being hung."

"Sorry about the 'up yours, nigger,' Sheriff."


Yeah, the movie really makes no sense without the "niggers."
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Wait a minute.... How did this topic migrate here from the movie thread.....?

Don't you know this thread is only for visciously sliming those with different political opinions?
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"Oh, man, you are so talented....And they are so DUMB!"

I'm not for replacing one stereotype for another, but sometimes country hicks are dumb. It's a great parody of this sometimes fact.

"Blazing Saddles" comes close to matching the quotability of "Casablanca."

It's twu! It's twu!

In one of those after-the-movie commentaries on TCM, the host (I think this is where I heard this) mentioned that Mel Brooks first had to look at Madeline Kahn's legs before he would hire her. But once he did and saw how fine they were, she was a lock. I grew up on the tongue-in-cheek campy humor of Madeline Kahn. I love that stuff. I'm still estranged from Steve Martin because I thought he gave up on that humor way too early and ran for "respectability." But there's nothing respectable about "The Man with Two Brains." It's primitive, goofy, sophomoric -- and funny as hell. I know it's just a thing I have, but I just can't bare to watch him in all that "Father of the Bride" crap. I want my old Steve Martin back. Rats.

"Sorry about the 'up yours, nigger,' Sheriff."

LMAO. And that's what passes for a tender moment in that movie, and it's actually a good one. I love when the lady tries to make it up to the sheriff by sliding a pie through the back window of the jail. And she says something like "I hope you'll have the decency, sheriff, not to mention this to anyone else." I can't find a script online, but I think it's close to that. And I love Harvey Korman in this film. Granted, Gene Wilder is very good in this movie, as is Cleavon Little. But I think Harvey Korman anchors this film. You need a good villain, and this is one of the great comedic villains of all time. Harvey Korman may never have been in a particularly good movie before this or after this. But he was in this one and he was brilliant. We should all be involved just once in our lives with something of such remarkable quality. (The Carol Burnett show was great fun as well, of course.)

Sophomoric humor is vastly underrated and I don't think is done very well these days. It may be a fine line between sophomoric humor and nose-picker humor, but I'll defend that line. Jim Carrey is today's undisputed king of sophomoric humor. Some like Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler, but they are both pretenders compared to Carrey (although Sandler does have his moments). But I suppose to each his own.

Harvey at his best: Bad Guys.

quote:

It's twu! It's twu!

A classic!
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No matter how loony the political babblings of some of you guys are, we'll always have "Blazing Saddles" to keep us together.


Meanwhile, Mongo slimmed down, changed his name to George W. Bush, and went into politics.
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Meanwhile, Mongo slimmed down, changed his name to George W. Bush, and went into politics.

I didn't notice the resemblance. But I stand in awe of Mel Brooks, and not just for the gratuitous chance it gives a white guy to use the word "nigger." During the telecast of "Blazing Saddles" it was noted that it was the first movie to break down the so-called fourth wall. That may be true, but that's kind of missing the forest for the trees. I think this movie was one of the few movies to do a quirky ending and make it work. Please hold your ears because blasphemy is coming, but I don't think Monty Python's ending to "Holy Grail" worked very well at all. It's an otherwise brilliant movie, but that ending didn't really top it off right. Same thing with "2001: A Space Oddysey." Great film. Stupid ending. Other films have tried gadgety or quirky endings, and few of them have worked well. Most have bombed. But Mel Brooks and company try one of the most outlandishly quirky endings of all time, and I can see a hundred places where it could have fallen apart, but it never does. This was comedic genius, and surely "genius" is a word over-used to describe work that is just very good. But that movie was not only very good work, it was genius in places.

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it was noted that it was the first movie to break down the so-called fourth wall. That may be true

Nooooo, many others, going back to silent film.

Blazing Saddles was 1974, "Alfie" did it in 1966, Mary Poppins in 1964... Bob Hope in almost all his road movies... Lou Costello in Abbot and Costello movies... the stooges.

I still don't get the "Baby I'm not from Havana" gag.

We go from the great line "Fifteen is my limit on Schnitzengruben"... to that one, where I always go: HUH?

Did she want to smoke him like a cigar? Is there something about the Havanese that're known for sexual prowess?

Was it a Freudian reference, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?" Because of the previous phallocentric joke?

quote:

During the telecast of "Blazing Saddles" it was noted that it was the first movie to break down the so-called fourth wall.

I don't think that's twu. I've seen it before. The one that comes most immediately to mind is "A Shot In The Dark" (1964), the first REAL Inspector Clouseau movie. There's a scene near the end, I think, where all the suspects start arguing among themselves and form a huddle which bumps Clouseau away. He can't break it up, and he turns and looks straight into the camera with an expression of extreme frustration. I think Charlie Chaplin did it occasionally, and I'm sure there are other examples.

Later addition:

quote:

"Alfie" did it in 1966

That reminds me that the great "Tom Jones" did it in 1963.
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Apparently thalo and I were tapping away on this topic at the same time......
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quote:

I still don't get the "Baby I'm not from Havana" gag.

It's a reference to the sort of live sex shows they had in Cuba before Castro. The men were supposed to be tireless and freakish in their size. See, e.g., the "Superman" scene at the private show in Havana in "Godfather 2."
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Nooooo, many others, going back to silent film.

Yeah, it sounded like a dubious claim at the time.

Think of all that stuff that Mel did in that movie that our crybaby culture probably would make difficult today. I love the scene at the end where the big dance number is interrupted and finally one of the male dancers has had enough and says to the other male dancers, "Get 'em, girls" or something like that. That's just hilarious.

Don't get the Cuban reference either. I never noticed that before. Just let it fly by. Love Madeline Kahn's big number: "I'm so tired." I didn't catch that part of it in my last viewing, but I did see that a few months ago and they chopped out what I thought was a lot of harmless suggestive stuff; stuff that would have gone over the heads of small kids anyway. Geez. We've sure regressed as a culture. We may disagree about causes and all that. But we've become wimps. The easily-offended have brought down a near Puritan-like silence on a lot of stuff, and it ain't necessarily the Puritans doing it.

It's a reference to the sort of live sex shows they had in Cuba before Castro.

Oh, okay. And like you said, there's that scene from Godfather II that touches on that.

Here's the lyrics. They had blotted out "And always too soon." That pissed me off. What kid is going to even remotely understand that reference?

quote:

Tired, tired of being admired
Tired of love uninspired
Let's face it
I'm tired

I've been with 1000's of men
Again and again
They promise the moon
They always coming and going
Going and coming
And always too soon
Right girls?

I'm tired,
Tired of playing the game
Ain't it a crying shame
I'm so tired
God dammit I'm exhausted

Tired, tired of playing the game
Ain't it a crying shame
I'm so tired

[Soldiers:]
She's tired (She's tired)
Sick and tired of love (Give her a break)
She's had her fill of love (She's not a snake)
From bellow and above (Can't you see she's sick)
Tired (She's bushed)
Tired of being admired (Let her alone)
Tired of love uninspired (Get off the phone)
She's tired (Don't you know she's pooped)

I've been with 1000's of men
Again and again
They sing the same tune
They start with Byron and Shelly
And jump on your belly
And bust your ballon
Aye!

Tired, tired of playing the game
Ain't it a freakin' shame
I'm so...
Let's face it everything below the waist is kapput!

quote:

It's a reference to the sort of live sex shows they had in Cuba before Castro.

Ahhh, interesting. I remember that scene in Godfather II. Oh, and how great was it when Fredo makes that slip of the tongue where he contradicted himself about knowing Johnny Ola. Chilling moment.

Mel Brooks lines you could never get away with today:

quote:

"What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is a-goin' on here?! I hired you people to try to git a little track laid, not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!"

The first Google hit brought me to what might be a band called -- you guessed it -- The Kansas City Faggots.

The song that comes up automatically upon loading the web page isn't half bad. Kinda mindless punk, but then perhaps that's when it's at it's best. And don't you all feel so insignificant because you don't have a MySpace presence?. It seems like everyone has one of those. I don't know what to make of it. I guess it's the vicarious, small-time equivalent of being on Oprah. If you can't actually get invited on Oprah and have your ten minutes of fame, how about 30 seconds? You can be somebody by being on MySpace. I'm not trying to be somebody on thalo.net. I'm just trying to annoy Markle.

This is huge loss to the Democratic Party with the passing of Russert. Especially at such a critical juncture of the 2008 campaign season. This blow to Democratic strategy spells even further disaster for Senator Hussein to come.

The DNC no longer have that go to person to spin the public on Sunday mornings for their favor. What I see them doing is A. not replacing Russert just let the show go blank for the next 6 months or B. What they most likely will do is fill the spot with someone so transparent that the public says what is this bullshit they are fausting on us.

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Anyone else hear that high-pitched buzzing in here?

Moving on....

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I'm not trying to be somebody on thalo.net. I'm just trying to annoy Markle.

It is important to set your goals high when embarking on your life's work.
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